IT HAPPENED TO ME

Mike and Jeanne Wrobel: When God Promises a Child

By David Kithcart and Peter BustetterThe 700 Club

CBN.com
 Jeanne says, “I was up front with Mike from the beginning. I said, ‘Look, I had chemotherapy. I had radiation. I’m sterile. This is what the doctors have told me since I was 13.’

“And he looked at me, and he said, ‘Honey, I love you. I don’t love the kids we don’t have yet. I’m marrying you for who you are, not to have babies with.’ I thought my heart just melted.”

In July of 1988, Mike and Jeanne became husband and wife. Yet Mike and Jeanne’s young marriage was quickly tested. Shortly after their honeymoon, doctors discovered cancer had returned to Jeanne’s body. Jeanne again faced the battles she fought as a young teenager. At 13, she had been diagnosed with gastrointestinal stromal tumors or GIST. Chemo, radiation, and surgery had rid her body of cancer for over nine years but now it was back.

Mike knew that this was a spiritual battle for Jeanne’s life. It was a fight he says God told him how to win.

Mike says, “He basically told me, ‘Keep focused on Me. Just as Peter has walked on the water, you’ll be able to go over your circumstances. Look at Me, and I’ll get you through this storm.’”

Over a year later Jeanne’s doctors were surprised when the cancer stopped spreading. Each test came back with miraculous results. Jeanne knew that God was in control.

“The doctor, who had known me all my life, said, ‘How do you know you’re healed?’ I said, ‘God’s Word says that by His stripes I am healed.’ I prayed, and I believed,” Jeanne says. “He said, ‘Let me take a CAT scan.’ He took a CAT scan, and he came back immediately and said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything, but the tumors had stopped spreading and they’d stopped growing.’”

But God’s miracles for Mike and Jeanne were only just beginning.

“I was just praying one day and the Holy Spirit told me, ‘Your wife’s pregnant’,” says Mike. I thought, Oh, that’s cool. I’ll tell her. She pulled a Sara on me. She laughed. She thought that was so funny. I says, ‘Honey, I’ll tell you what. You go in the prayer closet; you tell me what you hear.’”

“So I went into prayer, and I said, ‘Holy Spirit, you know I’ve been told I’ve been sterile since I was 13. Show me.’ I was flipping through my Bible, reading the Psalms, and I found Psalm 113:9, I will make the barren to keep house as a joyful mother of children,” says Jeanne. “I started to cry because having children was the farthest thing from my mind. I had reconciled myself to the fact, when I was 13, that I would never be a mother. When I read that Scripture, I said, ‘It’s true. I must be pregnant.’”

A blood test confirmed Jeanne was pregnant, but the doctors were not encouraging.

Jeanne says, “[The doctor] said, ‘You don’t understand. You need to terminate the pregnancy now.’ I just got very indignant, and in my spirit I thought, I most certainly do not. I said, ‘God is not going to drop me. He promises to make the barren women to keep house as a joyful mother of children.’”

Because of her medical history, Jeanne was sent to a high-risk pregnancy specialist, Dr. Bruce Rogers.

“We prayed,” says Dr. Rogers. “We both felt this child was a unique creation, a promise from God, and if God promised, the outcome would be good.”

Dr. Rogers’s wife, Diane, offered her prayer support.

“We really prayed a lot and fasted,” she says. “Jeanne actually built my faith very much because she just wouldn’t think of anything but a positive result.”

Diane called The 700 Club for help. “I would call at least monthly. I would talk to the prayer partners, and we would pray together.”

Those prayers were answered. In September of 1991, Jeanne and Mike welcomed Erica Leigh Wrobel into the world. Both mom and baby girl were fine.

“I couldn’t believe there were three of us,” says Jeanne. “I thought when I married Mike, I would never be any happier, and God just went above and beyond anything that I thought was possible.”

“My whole world changed,” says Mike. “As I think it does with any dad for the first time. When they hold their offspring… I was just thrilled, absolutely thrilled.”

After their daughter Erica turned one, the Wroebels were stunned to learn that Jeanne was expecting again. Despite doctors’ warnings, on July 4, 1993, Daniel Aaron Wrobel was born.

Today Mike, Jeanne, and their children enjoy each day of their lives together as a gift from God. For them, it’s continued proof of God’s love and sustaining power. You see, Jeanne has dealt with recurrences of cancer.

“I have been blessed to have time every day to pray,” she says. “When I first began this journey, I wanted a healing, and I was desperate. I would lie on my living room carpet and cry, ‘Why don’t you heal me? Why don’t you heal me? Why do I still feel pain?’ One day the thought dropped into my spirit, Why don’t you start thanking God that you’re not dead? Instead of handing Him a shopping list, like I used to do, I say, ‘Lord, give me what You want me to have. Let me know what your perfect will is for my life, for Mike’s life, for us as a couple.’ And He directs us.”